The present invention is directed to disposal devices for disposing of used syringe needles. In particular, the present invention is directed to a method and an apparatus for disposing of used syringes by cutting off used syringe needles and then storing the cut-off needles in a secured container.
Each year thousands of syringe hypodermic needles are used by hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities. To avoid contamination, practically all needles and most syringes are used only once. After the needles or syringes are used, they have to be properly disposed. One approach for suitable disposal of syringes is to place the syringes with the needles still attached to them into sealed containers. The containers are then periodically emptied into disposal machines. The disposal machines pulverize, sterilize or incinerate the content of the containers so that the resulting ground and sterilized or incinerated particles could be safely placed in a landfill or other non-hazardous disposal sites. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,261 to Solomans discloses a device for fragmenting medical waste, including syringes. The device disclosed in the Solomans patent includes a U-shaped stationary member to hold the item to be fragmented and a rotating blade which fragments the item in a shearing-type action. The device also includes an agitating member which continually throws the cut fragments into the path of the rotating blade to further cut the fragments into particles that are sufficiently small to be disposed of after sterilization. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,565,311 to Pugliese et al. discloses a machine for destroying used syringes. The machine includes a pair of spaced apart knives which shear parts of the syringe in multiple locations. U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,541 to Hashinoto et al. discloses a hypodermic syringe disposal apparatus which employs mesh gears to crush the syringe. Electrical voltage is applied to the gears so that the hypodermic needle of the syringe is burnt immediately upon coming in contact with the gears. U.S. Pat. No. 3,750,966 to Anderson discloses a device for destroying syringes, which employs a pair of counter-rotating toothed rolls for fracturing syringes into discrete pieces. U.S. Pat. No. 3,322,355 to Bryant discloses a disintegrating machine which grinds hypodermic syringes into small pieces. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,367 discloses a device which crushes medical waste using rotating blades that shear the items into pieces.
The approach of disposing of syringe needles by grinding crushing or pulverizing the entire syringe presents several problems. First, the devices for crushing the entire syringe, including the hypodermic needle, are generally, large, heavy and not easily portable. Therefore, the syringes have to be transported to such devices and, in most cases, the syringes must be temporarily stored prior to being transported. The sharp hypodermic needles on the syringes present a risk that either the medical personnel or the disposal personnel become infected by pricking their skin on the needles during storage or transportation. Second, the syringes can be stolen from temporary storage places or during transport and then reused by drug addicts. Third, the machines for crushing or grinding entire syringes are generally noisy and they vibrate during operation. This necessitates special arrangements for accommodating such machines. Finally, since tremendous forces have to be generated to crush syringes, the crushing machines are relatively expensive to make. They are also expensive to maintain because the parts subjected to stresses wear out requiring frequent maintenance to replace or repair worn out parts.
To obviate the problems inherent in the disposal of used hypodermic needles by crushing or grinding entire syringes, various devices have been designed for the removal of used syringe needles from the syringes, and subsequent disposal of the removed needles separately from the syringes. An inherent problem with removing the used needles from the syringes is the risk of accidental pricking of the skin which may cause infection from a virus, bacteria or microorganism that may be present on the needle.
To address this risk, devices were introduced to automatically unthread or unscrew the hypodermic needles from the syringes and to store the separated needles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,573 to Kelson, et al. discloses a disposal device for blood sampling needles in which a needle is threaded into a reusable sleeve. After the sampling needle is used to draw blood, the needle is unthreaded from the sleeve and discarded. The sleeve may be reused then with a new needle. The disposal device disclosed in the Kelson et al. patent automatically unscrews the needle from the sleeve when the blood sampling needle is inserted into the disposal device. U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,811 to Thead, et al. also discloses an apparatus for removing disposable needles from reusable syringes by unscrewing them from the body of the syringe. The user inserts the needle into the apparatus which automatically rotates the needle to disconnect it from the syringe. Similarly, the Thead et al. '598 patent, discloses a device which unscrews the needle from the syringe and allows the used needle to fall into a container. The device of this patent removes but does not destroy the used hypodermic needles.
One disadvantage of the devices that merely unscrew or unthread used needles from syringes is that the needles are not destroyed immediately after being separated from the syringes. As a result, the used needles that are temporarily stored, transported or discarded can be recovered by drug users, f or example, and reused. The recovered needles that are not properly sterilized before being used again may contribute to the spread of infectious diseases.
One approach to disposal of syringe needles is to snap, shear or bend the syringe needle so that it cannot be reused. This approach is disclosed in several patents. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,996 to Choksi et al discloses a device for severing a hypodermic needle at cannula using a manual cutter. The Choksi et al patent discloses that the cutter should preferably have a blunt shearing edge. It notes that a very sharp, beveled edge would simply dull when abutting the metal cannula. See e.g. column 2, lines 37-41. U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,359 to Dick discloses a syringe needle destroyer having a conical needle guide provided in axial alignment with a relatively small cylindrical passageway. To dispose of a used needle, the needle is inserted into the passageway via the needle guide and the syringe is bent to snap the needle off of the syringe by the bending action. The needle falls into a container for retaining used needles. One disadvantage of the device disclosed in the Dick patent is that the needle guide into which the needle must be inserted is so small that medical users of the device may inadvertently prick themselves with the used needles while attempting to insert the needle, and thus subject themselves to the risk of being infected with disease that may be carried on the contaminated needle. Another disadvantage of this approach is that the device for shearing or bending or snapping of syringe needles produce noise and vibration, both of which are disruptive in the hospital environment. Moreover, the large forces required to effect shearing bending or snapping of needles tend to reduce the useful life of such machines or require frequent maintenance to replace worn out parts.
There is, therefore, a long felt and still unsatisfied need for an efficient and safe manner of disposing of used syringe needles to prevent medical personnel and others from being infected by the used needles which may be contaminated with infectious agents and for an efficient and safe disposal of used syringe needles so as to prevent the contaminated needles from being reused and thereby minimize the spread of diseases.
The present invention fulfills these long felt still unsatisfied needs.
Thus, one object of the present invention is to provide an efficient and inexpensive method for disposing of syringes and hypodermic needles which renders the needles unusable and can be performed without excessive noise and vibration.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an efficient apparatus for disposing of syringes and hypodermic needles which is small enough to be portable and which requires a minimal amount of maintenance.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for disposing hypodermic needles which allows for secured storage and safe disposal of the needles cut off from the syringes.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for disposing of syringe needles, that need not be serviced or maintained for a prolonged time.
A yet further object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for disposing of syringe hypodermic needles which does not require special accommodations to avoid noise and vibrations.
Other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon studying this disclosure. All such objects and all advantages and features of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the claimed invention.